Tailwind

Thanks for the notes everyone, it's been a useful exercise. Snark, the worst part is I had already used the seat on a previous (aborted) Minmus mission, so I should have known how to use the blasted thing. Mea culpa. Anyway to report: the mission went off well. Yes I still F5 and F9 when I screw up, not much of a purest yet, but it was a fun mission to sort out. Here's some screenshots Down cleanly near the first survey site. Everyone plants a flag for the experience points and the rover comes off the mount nicely. Just wanted to check out if the rover would re-couple, it flopped around a little bit, then snapped into position. Worked like a charm. OK, Bob's off to do some science. Coming back to base, none to soon as Kerbol is setting. Off to the next site. Some of the locations are pretty nasty! Used the last 20 m/s to get off the ground. And dumped the decent stage. Getting home was otherwise uneventful. OK, so the tally was 6 contracts satisfied, and a 1985 point science haul. YEAH BABY!!! Cheers all Gerry

Maxrsp, thanks very much for your series, I'm finding them very helpful. I'm very much a newb to KSP and, so far, playing just beyond stock. What I like most about your vids is how you show the basics of using the mods, for the most part they don't come with much in the way of instructions. (yeah I haven't hunted too hard for them either) For example I had loaded Stage Recovery. I figured I had to deploy the chutes at staging, but of course they were always destroyed. One look at your vid, and I'm running the chute stages to the top of the list and I'm recovering everything in sight. Great tips, please keep them coming. As a couple of suggestions, I was finding the early game science collection a little difficult and tedious. I loaded up "DMagic Orbital Science" and "CactEye Orbital Telescopes" for a couple of new science avenues. They've worked out very well for me, including adding some challenging but doable contracts to the game. Cheers Gerry

Well, crap. That makes me feel rather stupid. I'm on the way to Minmus right now, just paused on my launch climbout, needed another coffee. I'll report how the mission went. Gerry

Plusck, yes indeed, as shown in the image above. I can stand near the rover, I can stand ON the rover, I can stand right on the seat itself. The only prompt I can get is "[F] Climb". Please forgive my ignorance: How would I upload a quicksave? (I've only just figured out how to attach an image.) Gerry

Snark, yes that's right, no "Board" button. Geschosskopf, you're right, it's the Rovermate for a chassis. In my earlier (sort-of) successful sortie with it at Minmus, the seat was sitting directly on the core body. I had attached the wheel assemblies directly to the Rovermate sides which left it pretty short-coupled and unstable. The other real issue was that I had the seat installed wrong. It was attached to the front face of the Rovermate, with Bob facing the sky. Pretty silly looking but I could drive with it. In this iteration I added the octagonal struts front and back, attaching the wheel assemblies and the command seat to the top of the strut. Thinking perhaps the seat needed to be attached directly to the core, I tried this: I hadn't previously thought to switch focus to the probe core, thanks for that idea, indeed it drives out from under the lander quite nicely. But still I can't board the seat. The rover is now fitted out with my science gear for the mission, a mix of stock and DMagic gear. I'll get out to Minmus, see how the thing works, and let you guys know. Thanks again for your thoughts. Gerry

I've got 3 contracts to do some surface surveys on Minmus. I've developed a somewhat clunky lander with a rover, been to Minmus once with it. I crashed the rover so I brought my Kerbals home without achieving any of the goals, but it was a good test run. The lander wasn't bad but needed to sit a little higher to drop off the rover, and the rover needs some mods to be more stable. The other change I thought I'd try is to use a docking port to drop off and pick up the rover, and hop to the different survey locations. The lander has a rather ludicrous amount of Delta-V so I should be able to get them all in one mission, rather than my earlier plan to do a trip for each one. I wanted to do some testing on the launch pad. After a couple of tries I think I have the leg height sorted. The lander drops off cleanly, and after pushing it out and back, the magnetic docking clamps will center the rover, but not pick it up. I bet it will on Minmus. The problem I've got, I can't figure out how to get someone into the Command Seat to take it for a spin. It worked when on Minmus, but not on the launch pad. I can crawl all over it, but can't find a position to get the 'board' prompt. Am I doing something wrong or is this expected behaviour? Gerry

Val, I think you've hit the nail on the head. I played with the wing mounting position, as I moved them back when the hinge line projected back to the centerline of the fuselage behind the CG, then they started to work correctly. I tried a few other things as well. I moved the wings forward again, and adjusted the sweep with the rotate tool. With the wing tips ridiculously in front of the CG, but the hinge line still behind, the controls still work "correctly". Anyway, my solution was to start with a 'structural wing B' with the long side (not the hypotenuse) at the fuselage, then added the swept wing outboard. I moved the wing inboard with the offset tool, clipping well into the B wing. At this point I still wasn't happy with the location of the center of lift position so I added a 'C' section of wing with the long end forward, to extend the strake. I set up all of my conventional aircraft with the CL ball within the back half of the CG ball. Tanks are centered at or slightly behind the CG so as they drain the CG moves marginally forward. Anyway, got it working now, thanks for the thoughts everyone. Gerry

Thanks for the thoughts Val and Claw. I'll play with it some more and report what I find. Gerry

When playing KSP 1.0.4 I had come up with a pretty good airplane to do the aerial survey contracts. It was a flying wing design with a fuselage. It had radial intakes near the Mk 1 cockpit up front a Wheezly in back for normal thrust. The fuselage had one liquid fuel tank and a rocket fuel tank to feed a pair of Thuds at the rear of the fuselage for the zoom climbs. The wings were swept with strakes and a single fin and rudder on the fuselage. It was rather remeniscent of a LongEZ without the canard. (I hadn't unlocked the canard yet.) The airplane flew very well, with stall speed under 30 m/s. Now in 1.0.5, still fairly early in a career campaign I'm trying to build a similar airplane. The problem is the control surfaces, (elevons and discrete elevators) deflect in the opposite direction needed. I don't remember from 1.0.4 if there was a setting to reverse the throw on the controls, or if it just recognized that there was no canard. Has this function been removed from the game in 1.0.5? Is there a way I can reverse the control throws manually? Gerry

Actually, now that I've watched some of your later episodes, the way you've done the solid boosters on your "Mun Rescue" rockets are exactly what I was talking about. You just had a problem on that first launch as you were still turning when the boosters kicked off. Whoops! Anyway, I've got another question for you. In episode 54 you're recruited rescuee, Macfen didn't seem to have the science instruments in his inventory. I've never used Kerbal Attachement System, but it seems to me that Kerbals can attache and detach components. Could he not have detached the instruments from the hull and moved them to the satellite? Cheers Gerry

Hi Jarratt I'm working through your 1.04 playthrough, and enjoying it. Nice to see I'm not the only one making all the nooby goofs. I just watched episode 35, the failed attempt at an orbital rescue. You've had the booster crash-into-stage-one issue before. The Sepratrons are a pretty sweet solution to be sure, but I've learned a trick that will save a few bucks for you. Note that with the radial separators down low, when they kick the boosters off the nose of the booster angles inward, and the aero forces bring them in toward the center stack. If you mount you're separators high and the struts at the bottom then the nose of the boosters kick out at separation, you should get much cleaner launches. Keep the vids coming. Gerry